Worries about the economy didn’t hold radio back in the second quarter — but growth wasn’t exactly meteoric, either: total advertising revenues increased 1% from just under $4.54 billion to just over $4.58 billion, according to the latest figures from the Radio Advertising Bureau.

A new survey from RISI, a trade organization representing the forest products industry, predicts that total demand for paper for magazines and newspapers will drop 12% to 21% by 2015, attributing the slump directly to the rise of tablet-style computers and e-readers.

[from Los Angeles Times] – Steve Carney provides a detailed account of how Arbitron’s Portable People Meters (PPMs) have not only changed radio ratings but radio programming itself. In addition to format changes, the change to instant measurement from the diary method — which relied on listeners’ memories — has resulted in the end of such practices as incessant repetition of station call letters, and promotions timed to reach a crescendo just before the end of diary periods.

In its first earnings announcement as a publicly traded company, Pandora revealed that its Internet radio service now accounts for approximately 3.6% of all radio listening in the U.S.

That’s based on the roughly 1.8 billion hours its 100+ million users spent listening to the service during the second quarter, which was up 125% from the same period in the previous year. The 3.6% share was double what the company reported during Q2 2010, and up from 2.3% at the start of this year.